Archive for September 21st, 2006

North Carolina BBQ – Village Inn in Lumberton

Thursday, September 21st, 2006

My never-ending quest to eat pork barbecue has recently taken me to Lumberton, NC. If you’re headed through Lumberton around dinnertime, you might want to stop and have a bite at the Village Inn Bar-B-Que and Seafood. Here’s what you can expect at the Village Inn

First, don’t expect fancy signs.

[Sign]
They don’t go for fancy neon signs at the Village Inn

Don’t expect a fancy building.

[Outside]
They don’t go for fancy buildings, either.

Do expect excellent hush puppies

[Hush puppies]
Share these with the other folks at your table!

Do expect a good-sized portion of North Carolina light vinegar barbecue, served with slaw and fries.

[BBQ plate]
This is the medium barbecue plate, which cost just under $6.

Don’t expect hash, since you’re in North Carolina.

Village Inn reminds me a little of the barbecue places I would eat at when I was a kid. Shabby cinderblock buildings, decidedly non-fancy decorations and menus, but good food.

[From the table]
No-frills eatin’

You can also get containers of hot or cold barbecue for take-out – just in case you need a shot of pork barbecue for the road, and it’s about as cheap as you’ll find anywhere. At Village Inn, you can get a few pounds of BBQ for what Maurice would charge you for a single Big Joe sandwich in SC.

If you want to try the Village Inn, you’ll find it at 3345 Martin Luther King Jr Drive in Lumberton. If, like me, you’re not from around there, exit I-95 onto highway 74, then follow 74 until you get to highway 21 (which is Martin Luther King Jr Drive). It’s just past the fairgrounds.

Posted in Food | 2 Comments »

Safety tip

Thursday, September 21st, 2006

Dan Holden teaches middle-school socal studies class, and burned a small American flag to get his students to think and write about the flag-burning issue. The story’s here.

As this story takes place in Kentucy, you can imagine what happened. Kentucky has a law against flag desecration, but it’s likely unenforcable due to the Supreme Court ruling that flag desecration is protected speech. So how are the reactionaries going to try to punish Mr. Holden’s brazen attempt to … get students to think about an issue?

The district also alerted city fire officials, who are conducting their own investigation.

“Certainly we’re concerned about the safety aspect,”

Another article says, thankfully, that

… the evidence doesn’t warrant filing a charge of criminal wanton endangerment — causing significant risk of serious injury or death.

So, they were going to try to bust Mr. Holden for “safety” reasons. That’s pretty pathetic, in my book. But there’s a lesson to be learned from this:

If you’re going to burn a small American flag in an effort to get students to think about the flag-burning issue, then make sure to burn said American flag under a properly-functioning fume hood.

Posted in Education, The culture wars | Comments Off on Safety tip